Famous American Short Story

Somehow in one of middle school classes last Tuesday I mentioned a famous American short story called "The Story of an Hour", written by the author Kate Chopin in 1894.

One of my students chose to find and read the story on her own, something that doesn't often happen as middle school students tend to be overworked here (in Korea).  Fortunately, I have two of the good students in the same class.

The student and I talked about the story--partly remarkable because it is only 2-3 pages long, but also because it focuses on early American feminist writing--and I tried to clarify some of the concepts of the story.

I repeat this here since I think it would be a good short story for everyone to read; you can find it on the internet, but read it first, please, before watching any film adaptations.  One place to read it is here:

http://classiclit.about.com/od/storyofanhourchopin/a/aa_storyhour_text.htm

When I was teaching college/university writing and literature in the U.S., I used the story as an introduction to symbolism, etc.